Wasp nests

There is no categorical mention of the impossibility of bigfoot habitation in the far south, such cases are simply not noted.

The impossibility of proving the absence of something based on the absence of evidence for its existence is an unsolved problem of dialectics, so what? But it is very commendable that Pan finally faced the truth and recognized his region as the extreme south of Ukraine.

Again, the wasps have gray days, overcast, polisty sitting on the honeycomb. On the other hand, germanic queens are worn everywhere, but as long as I've seen them, they all show search activity, look for holes, and I haven't seen hunting behavior yet.

I saw such a wasp, the first time I see such a small German woman, almost like a lazius in size

Pictures:

P5030338.jpg — (467.86к)

Here one friend is looking for "highly artistic photographs of German women", Pan definitely should present this masterpiece to him. By the way, similar micromutylids have also recently appeared in our country, and they are searching the burrows of microgalictids. But they run so fast that I could not catch any of them in the frame.

Highly artistic shot )))

Pictures:

P5060938.jpg — (427.63к)

Pyschit, and climb!

We have a huge number of queens flying, just wherever you look on the street-everywhere vespula queens fly! But so far, only search activity is visible, probably due to the cold snap at the end of April, the queens decided to fly out a little later in search of nests.

On the balcony, the nymph's nest in the chimney has grown several cells, everything is also in order in the lantern, the females are still there.

Hornet nesting boxes will probably be populated with vespulae, with such a large number of them. Although maybe the hornet queen will expel vespula )

Our search activity is also visible - they are already looking for mining in full swing. But these are germanics, vulgaris still looking for shelter for the nest. In general, this year, due to the uneven spring, vespula nests were laid very unevenly in time. But what are vespules to me when there are already observation nests of all three polist species:





This year, everything finally went back to normal: the gallicus regained its leadership in the number of nests on the steppe slopes, before that, the nymph had been abnormally dominant there for three years, and I even began to doubt which of these species is more numerous in our area normally.

With such rains to all these galikusam soon chipariki will sail
And the Vespulae were unlucky enough to nestle in the ground.

And my nymphs on the balcony are well, dry, protected from the wind, I will feed them )

The October larva of a solitary wasp successfully grew, overwintered, and today the oska flew away from its nest.
By the way, what a hefty quartz crystal wasp dragged, almost like katamenes, stones adds to the ground, it is clear that they have a common thing)

Pictures:

P5112532.jpg — (540.46к)

And what exactly is a quartz crystal from the photo? Invisible nifiga.

Yes, everything is normal with animals nesting in the ground. This isn't November, when the soil gets wet through and doesn't dry out for weeks. Yes, and the rain, though every day, but very short-term, interspersed with sunshine. So the soil is just the consistency that is best to dig, and the moves will not crumble.

With polis, too, everything is fine, the nests of nymphs grow by leaps and bounds. For example, in one last night there were 2 cells and today in the afternoon - as many as six. It's the nest I found first. back in April, already like this:



And here are the dominant sockets in the junction box:




A rare moment of molting of one of the larvae was captured, but I don't know if it was at the fourth age or already at the fifth. Two nests merged and another one, the fourth, appeared on the side wall, I noticed it only at home when viewing pictures.

And finally, the nests of gallicuses, which are getting bigger every day:




The last two photos were taken through a magnifying glass in cloudy weather.

Ezox, put a nozzle on your eyes, since you can't see such a stone
Although it may be not only quartz, but also feldspar, but this does not change the essence, it is not easy to bring such a grain of sand.

I look, Ezox finally deigned to install CHDK

I'll also show off some new photos. Click on the links)

http://vespidae2012.narod.ru/hornet_queen2.html

http://vespidae2012.narod.ru/queens.html

http://vespidae2012.narod.ru/dominula_cycle.html

And it happens:

http://vespidae2012.narod.ru/media_cycle2.html I'll show off my find

Roman, what do you have with the dachas there that at the height of the season you can freely climb around the yards, like in the Chernobyl zone? Where did the owners of such capital houses go?

We have the first cocoons in our dominul nests. There won't be any photos yet - the phtotic is dead. And the gallicus nest, captured in the above photo, turned out to be abandoned (apparently, the female died), so eucers can roost on it without fear.

  http://vespidae2012.narod.ru/media_cycle2.html I'll show off my find

Watch when the female will make the entrance tube.

We have summer cottages near the forest, but 80% of them are abandoned and not visited by the owners. Most of them are open for entry, some are still locked in the old ones. 20% are still visited, mostly by the elderly. In general, ideal places for the OS)

I will definitely follow up when I start making a tube, there will be a photo report on the page, I plan to visit the nest approximately every 3 days.

Wow! It seems that you don't have a war, but summer villages are dying out. And how long ago did it start?

This process has been going on for as long as I can remember. From what I know, near the forest once in the 90s or early 2000s, there was a fashion for building dachas and so on. Mostly, older people were doing it. Now many are abandoned due to the death of elderly owners, many were simply abandoned and smashed by profit seekers) Some cottages are now quite well and richly built, there are apiaries, but there are also a lot of such abandoned buildings near them, starting from 2x2 meter booths, ending with three-top brick domami

Ezox seems to think that this is the harmful influence of the Maidan, or that everything is so bad on the memory card )))
In fact, we also have a lot of abandoned dachas, but they are all concrete, mostly those that are intact, because others were bombed either for bricks or for firewood 100 years ago. The fact that there are such abandoned dachas on the memory is an indicator of well-being, by the way, otherwise they would have been dismantled long ago

Well, what does the Maidan have to do with it? This is only the final stage of a process that began a quarter of a century ago. Abandonment is not an indicator of well-being, but of depopulation and emigration. Those who previously worked in summer cottages, in order to have fresh vegetables and fruits for the table, went to "zarabitchans", this is the first category of summer residents. Those who used dachas purely for recreational purposes (as we say in such cases - villas), went to the EU, Russia, USA, Canada or somewhere else for permanent residence.

But in the Donbass before the war, the desolation of dacha villages was not observed. On the contrary, they grew like mushrooms after a rainstorm, especially cottage complexes for the rich. The situation was different in small industrial towns, many of which really became "ghosts" back in the 90s due to the collapse of the industrial heritage of the USSR.

Mass desolation of housing is always a sign of oppression of the state or its individual regions. Even in the United States, this was the case (not for the entire country, but for the northern states, in particular New Jersey). They say that one of the reasons was the invention of air conditioners, after which people en masse went to the south (before that it was unbearably hot there). But the people of Ukraine were trapped outside, because it became unbearable for many inside. The same thing happened a little earlier in most Warsaw Pact states, after joining the EU. But in Ukraine, there are prerequisites for a much larger outflow of the population, because conditions in this country are much worse than, for example, in the Baltic States, which are almost half empty. The only thing that holds him back is poverty, many simply do not have enough money to escape. In the near future, we will be able to observe a dramatic confrontation between these two forces - centrifugal and centripetal-just as in space with the example of stars. A new Great Migration of Peoples has already begun.

http://vespidae2012.narod.ru/saxonica_cycle11.html - A female who decided to establish 2 nests.

http://vespidae2012.narod.ru/media_cycle2.html - medium WASP, DEVELOPMENT CONTINUES

Very interesting case! How did you identify the individual?

Spent about 25 minutes near the nest. I specially waited for the female, then photographed her abdomen when she was on one nest, then she flew away and returned to the second nest. I took her picture again. The color of the abdomen matches to the smallest detail. There was no doubt that this was one wasp building after that) while I was there, I made 3 flights to the first nest and 2 flights to the second, each time building a shell. But I noticed that the wasp took a long time to find the entrance every time. Buzzed for a long time and then came back. Apparently, it is difficult for her to remember which hole leads to the nest and she mistakenly built two at once. Let's see what happens next) very interesting

But I still have my doubts. The pattern may be very similar in different individuals. To make sure, it is worth catching a female near one of the nests during active construction work and keeping her locked up for a while. If they stop feeding on the second nest, and then resume again after the release, then this is probably really one individual. There is another complex method - marking with paint.Gouache is well suited for short-term marking. If a wasp marked on one nest appears on the second, then the confirmation will be unquestionable.

But I still have my doubts. The pattern may be very similar in different individuals. To make sure, it is worth catching a female near one of the nests during active construction work and keeping her locked up for a while. If they stop feeding on the second nest, and then resume again after the release, then this is probably really one individual. There is another complex method - marking with paint.Gouache is well suited for short-term marking. If a wasp marked on one nest appears on the second, then the confirmation will be unquestionable.

I agree that the color of the abdomen of female founders, unlike workers, is very conservative, and it can be quite difficult to distinguish different females. Therefore, a placemark is the best option. But a simple capture and temporary imprisonment of a female can lead to the fact that she will not return to the nest at all.
Saxon birds can be very active in the initial stages of nesting. I've seen more than that before. But, as a rule, all this ends more or less sadly.
Less so if one nest is abandoned after the first workers leave the other. This is 100% - you can't sit on two chairs.
But most often, the females abandoned all their juvenile nests.
And there were cases when such nests were successfully captured by adulterines.

Why shouldn't she come back after being captured? Give her some syrup, hold it for an hour or two-only "thank you" will say. Of course, I didn't deal with the Saxonists (due to the lack of them in our country), but with the Polists and Germanisms, this is exactly the experience. This is not a bird that can be permanently scared off from the nest, the topographical memory is iron-clad.

http://vespidae2012.narod.ru/hornet_cycle1.html Check it out, comrades. How much effort did it take to find this. The goal of the season was)

Yes, cool!
I haven't checked my hornets yet, I think it's too early, no matter who lives there, it's still too early to make a transfer, but you can scare them, so in the 10th of June it's just right, then in theory there should definitely be German workers, of course there are hardly any hornets, they lay their nests later.

Nests of nymphs on the balcony live well, oskis are in place, nests are growing, but there are no pechatok yet. And last season, at this time, the first worker wasps were already climbing out.

Roman, in what sense has the season's goal been achieved? Well, the nest is found, then what? Or was the goal just to take a couple of photos at such an early stage?

Pan Stepova, whose workers flew out, nymphs or still dominated? I have dominated everything before: both the beginning and the end.

Well, the goal of the season I had in mind the plan to find the mother hornet at the initial stage and make a photo report of the nest life before the colony decays) I hope this find will help to do this

This post was edited by Roman Rakochy - 05/28/2016 02: 37

Ah, well, this is a completely different matter, the main thing is to make regular observations.

At the current stage of development, I will visit the nest every 2-3 days. Then a little less often)

If there are scientific goals, it would be very good to map the cells at regular intervals, at least until the workers appear (this may not be safe later). Fortunately, hornets that nest in hollows usually have a shell only on top. If you can stick the camera under the socket perfectly (but probably just have to go back to the soap dish), if not, then you need to put a mirror. It is fashionable to extract a lot of different kinds of information from these maps: the dynamics of honeycomb construction, the dynamics of brood development, and the patterns of its placement.

http://vespidae2012.narod.ru/saxonica_in_brushwood.html I rarely find it in such places)

This is not a bird that can be permanently scared off from the nest, the topographical memory is iron-clad.

Experience shows that this "iron" is enough for 2-3 days, like a hedgehog.

http://vespidae2012.narod.ru/germanica_cycle1.html whatever you say. Did you meet her in such places?

http://vespidae2012.narod.ru/hornet_cycle1.html and this beauty is actively building)

  http://vespidae2012.narod.ru/germanica_cycle1.html whatever you say. Did you meet her in such places?

Strange images. The female seems to be Germanic. But the nest is completely different from the German one, neither in color nor in structure. If it weren't for the female, I'd be pretty sure it was a Saxon's nest. In short, you need to monitor it.

https://vk.com/video310150173_456239029 video of females and nests. What do you say?

This post was edited by Roman Rakochy - 01.06.2016 11: 13